Myths About Spirituality

Right from my childhood until now, I have heard a number of myths about spirituality. I myself believed in some of these myths for quite a few years, until I learnt the truth about them. Some of the myths may be specific to certain cultures/religions, whereas others are universal. The truths about these myths are well known to people who practice spirituality in some form or the other. For the benefit of others who have still not got a good introduction to spirituality, here is an attempt to debunk these myths one at a time:

From time to time, we have heard about great saints leaving behind family life in pursuit of higher realities. The Buddha left behind his wife and young son in search of spiritual enlightenment. Similarly, Swami Vivekananda also left his family to seek salvation as a sanyani. Most spiritual teachers, especially in the eastern tradition, maintain no family of their own, and spend their whole life contemplating and teaching the higher knowledge.

Due to the above, the common man is mistakenly led to believe that spirituality is about escaping family responsibilities.

Nothing can be further than the truth. On the other hand, spirituality teaches us about performing all our worldly responsibilities and giving our 100% in whatever we take up. Additionally, family life is perfect to practice spirituality. It is so much easier to maintain your peace of mind in solitude when there is no one around to push your buttons. The real test of spiritual growth happens only in family life!

Throughout history, there have been examples of many spiritual people who were householders. For examples, King Janaka, the father of Sita, was a highly realized yogi, who fulfilled both his familial and worldly responsibilities fully, even remaining the king of his own state.

Spirituality is thus not about escaping the world. On the other hand, it teaches us skills that helps us perform our responsibilities in a more efficient manner. Spirituality is not about ignoring our work, rather about finding God while doing our work. Serving man is the way to serve God – you don’t have to go to the Himalayas to find Him.

Myth #2: Spirituality is only for the weak minded.When I was growing up, I was never into watching too much television, especially after I got my own computer. Yet, when people in the house played i“serials”, as they were called, I got exposed to them now and then. The one repeating character that was present in most of them was that of a noble, god fearing person – the “good guy”, who always did noble deeds, and never harmed anyone. Many times this would be the daughter-in-law of the house. People around her, usually the in-laws, would be the bad people (the villains), oppressing the poor lady in all kinds of ways, while she silently endured all the suffering inflicted on her. At one point, this lady turns to God and says “Dear God, what have I done to get this treatment? Have I not been good? Why do good people suffer?”

The central message that I got from repeatedly seeing this story was that:• The bad people are strong and controlling.• The good people are weak and suffer.• The weak people turn to spirituality as a crutch.

After entering in the mechanical engineering field, my exposure to these “TV serials” has become almost zero, however I’m told that the same story of oppression of weak people, and that of these people turning to spirituality keeps repeating now and then on television. Also, whenever I post on compassion and accepting people as they are without judging them, I usually get a few responses telling me that this type of attitude does not work in today’s competitive world. I’m cautioned that if one is “too spiritual”, then people will take advantage of you. At the core of this belief is the myth that spirituality is for the weak, and that spiritual people being so noble, let other people walk all over them.

It is true that many people who are undergoing a lot of suffering turn to spirituality for solace. Spirituality does provide many tools to heal the mind. Many people report that spirituality has helped them immensely where traditional psychotherapy or medicine no longer worked. The above stereotype of people turning to spirituality in suffering is very much like physically sick people going to the emergency room of the hospital in life and death situation. While people do need emergency services now and then, this does not mean that the hospital only provides care for these emergency situations! The hospital of spirituality is really more about prevention than cure. In fact, this hospital comes with its own gym – a gym for the mind that trains people and makes them stronger, skillful and more capable of handing the stresses and strains for life.

The graduate of this hospital-gym is not the weakling that went to the emergency room in serious condition. On the contrary, the person that comes out of this gym is a strong, mighty, and skillful spiritual warrior who is well equipped to handle all of life’s challenges. This person has gone through rigorous training and built the muscles of his mind. While normal people crumble under the weight of the regular stresses and strains of life, this warrior is able to go about life with relative ease. No, this warrior does not seeks spirituality as a crutch. He is a powerful man firmly established in himself, who can stand on his own two feet.

This mighty spiritual man knows his true nature, and has found his true powers. He has developed a well integrated personality, by beautifully balancing the head and the heart. Not only can he defend himself from the outside world, his understanding of life is so deep that he now is the pillar of support to all those around him. If someone behaves in ways that are harmful to him, on one hand he is compassionate and understanding of their limitations, and on the other hand, he takes dynamic action to make the situation better, using his powerfully centered mind. This is not the weak-minded person you once knew – rather he has transformed into a confident, powerful, and empowered creator of his life. Spirituality thus it not just for the weak-minded, rather it is a gym that helps develop powerful muscles for every mind, regardless of however mentally strong anyone is to start with.

Myth #3: Spirituality and material success cannot coexist.Throughout my life, I have had the company of people who were self-proclaimed materialists, who believed primarily on achieving material success above everything else. “People will not respect you until you have money, position and power” they say. These people spend the majority of their energy and time in the pursuit of increasing their bank balance. Whenever a discussion on spirituality came up with these people, I found one common belief that all of them held – “ The pursuit of spirituality would become an obstacle to my material progress”. The common fear they had is that with increased interest in spirituality, they would somehow lose interest in the material world, and hence the drive to make more money, and finally end up losing their self-worth, as in their opinion, a man is primarily defined by his material prosperity.

Then there are people I met, who wanted to pursue spirituality and at the same time achieve the material goals that they have set for themselves and their loved ones. Their inner desires are more spiritual and less material. These people worry that if they take up any spiritual practice, they will not be able to give enough time and attention to their own material needs and the needs of their loved ones. They believe that being spiritual and going after material success are mutually exclusive.

The purpose of this post is not to condemn anyone for their desires and actions, rather the goal is to remove myths that block a person’s progress – both materially as well as spiritually. Each one of us is acting according to our nature, which is determined by our “gunas”, which is the unique mix of the three qualities of “sattva”, “rajas” and “tamas”. Sattva is the tendency towards purity and knowledge. Rajas is the tendency towards desire driven activity. Tamas is the tendency towards inactivity/delusion. The materialist typically has more rajas and less sattvic and tamasic gunas in him. As such, he is doing his best to fulfill his desires, and there is nothing wrong in his actions, except that if he works in detachment, he will find more peace in life in addition to material success.

The belief, however that “Spirituality and material success are mutually exclusive” is not true.This belief comes out the ignorance of what is material, and what is spiritual. Although we all claim to know what matter is, most of us would find it hard to define matter. Very few people know that matter itself is created by spirit! Yes, the material world manifests from spiritual energy. Matter by itself is inert and cannot create more matter on its own. Prakriti – the material energy, is unconscious and inert, and cannot act without the touch of the purusha (the spirit). Put another way, everything that we see in material form originated as a thought. Material forms are nothing but manifested thoughts frozen in the realm of time-space. Everything material thus has limited existence, whereas the non-material, being subtle and formless, has no such limits. Thoughts originate from spirit. Materials cannot think for themselves and thus cannot manifest anything without the support of the spirit.

If the above sounds a little too complicated and difficult to understand, here is another point that suggests that the material and the spiritual are not mutually exclusive. Practically speaking, spirituality is the science of the mind. The mind is the tool with which we interact with the world outside. If the mind is disturbed and not focused on the things we want to achieve, the likelihood of achieving any success, materially or spiritually is very grim. If however, the nature of mind is understood and brought under our control through spiritual practices, then our mind becomes a powerful yet faithful servant that can help us manifest anything we want, with much less stress in the process. Spirituality thus provides the skills by which one can become more successful not only spiritually, but also materially. So many concepts that are now thought in the modern world as “Management sciences”, “Psychology”, “Success Principles” etc, has been expounded in the spiritual sciences a long time back.

In a nutshell, spiritual abundance is about enhancing our beauty inside, whereas material abundance is about enhancing the beauty outside. The inside and the outside are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the inside can help develop the outside – as a mind under control is able to achieve far greater material success, and also, the outside can also help develop the inside, as even spiritual pursuits such as meditation retreats, books, seminars do not come free of cost, and one needs some level of material abundance to pay for them. It is only our ignorance that leads us to have aversion/limited beliefs towards the spiritual or the material. In reality, it is very much possible to find a beautiful balance between of purusha (spirit) and prakriti (matter).